Are you looking for the top Etsy alternatives to try? Learn about my favorite alternatives, how they work, and what sets them apart from Etsy.
Etsy connects handmade and vintage goods sellers to buyers. But are there other marketplaces that offer different opportunities, fee structures, and user experience?
Here’s a guide on the best Etsy alternatives where you can connect with buyers and grow your business.
Etsy is an online marketplace catering to artisans selling stuff online. The platform boasts over 96 million customers, 7.5 million sellers, and over 95 million product listings.
The platform excels at search engine optimization. You can see popular keywords shoppers use to find your Etsy shop, allowing you to enhance your digital marketing efforts. Etsy offers flexible marketing packages to promote your store both off-site and on-site.
Starting an Etsy business is easy because you get access to a huge customer base, while a personal website may take years to accumulate such traffic.
Given the platform’s popularity, you’ll compete against many similar product listings and may need to invest more time and effort to set your store apart.
The platform also charges certain seller fees, including a $0.20 listing fee for each item you post and 3.5% per sale.
Another drawback to consider is that Etsy reserves full control over your shop and may close it without notice if you violate any guidelines.
Here’s a quick overview of the top two alternatives to Etsy:
Amazon Handmade is the best Etsy alternative for sellers, given Amazon’s massive brand recognition and customer base. Unlike on Etsy, this platform’s sellers enjoy a superior user experience, with representatives ready to help with any issues.
Shopify is Etsy’s biggest competitor and is popular with sellers who want to build a customized independent shop. Shopify makes it easy to create an online storefront with robust e-commerce features. The platform lets you use your domain name and personalize your shop with free or paid themes.
Amazon Handmade is an extension of the regular Amazon marketplace, allowing you to list handmade goods such as home decor, jewelry, and presents. You leverage Amazon’s marketing tools to enhance your brand’s visibility.
Buyers can browse by category, search for specific items or sellers, and filter by price and customer reviews. You can manage your listings and inventory through Amazon Seller Central.
The platform doesn’t charge a monthly subscription and lets you create a shop profile showing your items. Although it doesn’t offer as much customization like Etsy, your products get massive exposure.
Prime eligibility provides a major advantage through fast, free shipping. You also benefit from Amazon’s handling of payments, order fulfillment, and customer service.
The platform’s final value fee of 15% per sale exceeds Etsy’s 6.5%. Amazon’s size and scope can make it hard for you to stand out and make personal connections with buyers. Not everyone qualifies to list on the platform because of its strict seller requirements.
Shopify is an e-commerce platform that allows you to create a custom domain and sell products directly to customers. You can choose a range of themes and designs to tailor your site’s aesthetics and add features through Shopify’s App Store.
It makes adding products, descriptions, images, prices, and inventory counts easy. The platform handles key e-commerce functions like payment processing, shipping, and order management. Sites are optimized for mobile shopping.
Shopify gives you complete control and ownership over your independent online store. You can build your brand and make your shop as unique as your products.
You’ll get access to paid adverts, order management, a functional chatbot, and marketing tools. If you want to use a feature unavailable on Shopify, you can get a third-party extension to handle it within the platform’s ecosystem.
Shopify doesn’t have a built-in audience like Etsy, so you need to accumulate your traffic through marketing and SEO. Monthly subscription fees can also amount to higher long-term costs.
Unlike Etsy, the platform doesn’t support email hosting. While Shopify offers various themes, its design personalization options are basic. You may need to engage a designer for personalized changes to your store’s appearance.
eBay is an online auction site and marketplace where buyers search for everything, including vintage and handcrafted items. You can create listings for fixed-price or auction-style sales. eBay provides exposure to over 130 million active buyers but limited buyer support.
Tap into the huge buyer traffic already coming to eBay to auction and purchase second-hand goods. Setting up is simple since eBay has an established system. You can also promote listings easily within eBay’s ecosystem.
Unlike Etsy, which only gives you SEO recommendations, the platform’s SEO team tries to direct traffic to your shop.
Customizing your shop is difficult if you’re unfamiliar with HTML. The platform’s personalization tools will only give your shop and product listings a basic appearance.
Buyers may focus more on getting deals than supporting small businesses. High competition means you must work hard for visibility among millions of listings. eBay’s fees also cut into profits.
Bonanza is an online marketplace for jewelry, furniture, art, and dishes. The platform lets you set up a shop and list products with your pricing, descriptions, and photos. When a buyer picks a product, they may buy at your set price or ask for a discount.
Bonanza charges a $0.25 fee per sale. It also provides several advertising tools with its paid plans, and you retain ownership of your shop and listings. The site also allows you to communicate directly with potential buyers.
With a smaller audience than Etsy, driving traffic to your shop can be challenging. Bonanza has a rigid refund process and unfriendly shipping costs. The platform’s built-in branding and customizing tools are complex.
Weebly is a user-friendly website builder with drag-and-drop eCommerce functionality. The platform’s search engine optimization functionality isn’t overly comprehensive, but it enables you to input header and footer, manage SEO indexing, and set up redirects within the system. Weebly lets you invite individuals to work with you on your site.
The platform’s editor is easy to use, with hundreds of templates. It lets you upload personalized themes through the “upload” feature. Weebly allows further customization using CSS and HTML if you’re an expert.
Weebly doesn’t confine you to their platform or prevent you from migrating. The platform’s flexible plans allow you to test it comfortably.
The platform’s templates don’t match its competitor’s modern aesthetics, making it hard to create a standout website. The ability to modify the store checkout is constrained. Weebly’s mobile optimization is subpar, affecting your website’s appearance on smaller screens. The platform’s performance can be sluggish if your site contains many images or content.
Squarespace is an all-in-one web publishing platform known for its beautiful templates. It offers powerful commerce capabilities, ease of use, and effective hosting and security infrastructure.
While URL redirect options are available, Squarespace’s SEO capabilities focus on basic meta elements. The platform lacks substantial A/B testing functionality.
You can build a stunning online store with minimal web design expertise using Squarespace’s templates. Built-in marketing and analytics provide valuable business insights.
The platform lets you transfer an old domain to your new website or buy a new one from them. Squarespace’s blogging features allow you to change images, SEO options, and meta descriptions for display on social media sites.
Squarespace’s page builder has limited flexibility for customizing your site’s layout beyond its templates. There’s no option to integrate services outside of Squarespace’s ecosystem.
That makes it difficult to customize your website if you’re a novice. The platform also lacks instant phone support for troubleshooting issues.
Aftcra is an online marketplace for handmade goods. You must apply to join, and your items are vetted to verify their handmade status. You can’t list vintage products, factory-produced items, or anything not American.
Low competition gives you a better chance to stand out than the crowded Etsy. Aftcra won’t charge you any listing fee until you make your first sale. Your product listings remain active for six months.
Since the platform prohibits mass-produced products, there’s less competition from poor quality, cheap products. The supportive environment helps new handmade sellers learn skills and grow through access to guidance.
Low site traffic makes sales challenging without external marketing. You’ll need to leverage marketing tools such as Facebook and Google Shopping. Aftcra offers limited design customization options to build your brand identity.
Wix is a robust website builder with extensive e-commerce capabilities and great design flexibility for sellers wanting a customized store.
The platform handles hosting and support for all sites. Wix provides live editing to see changes in real time as you build. You also don’t need to take your site down or publish blindly.
You’ve two options when designing your Wix website.
You can ask their AI to create a quality site that you’ll edit with set parameters or pick a template from their library. The platform provides built-in e-commerce tools to handle critical functions.
Wix also lets you perform superior tasks, such as setting up shipping requirements and abandoned cart alerts.
Wix doesn’t allow switching of templates once you go live. To change the template, you must take down the entire site and start over. Unlike Etsy, the platform doesn’t offer in-depth traffic analytics.
Wix also struggles with sluggish load times. That may work against you because it translates to unhappy customers and poor search rankings.
Folksy is an online marketplace focused on handmade crafts where you can connect with buyers who appreciate original artisan products.
The platform’s ethos mirrors Etsy’s original values since it only features items made by authentic artisans. You’re responsible for deciding how many times you want to sell at different points and setting delivery timeframe.
Folksy’s community enables forming relationships with buyers. The platform allows you to retain full ownership and control over your shop. Folksy optimizes your store to ensure it’s mobile-friendly and permits you to upload a unique banner. The platform offers reliable customer support and displays your store’s traffic analytics.
Given Folksy’s low built-in site visits, you’ll need to drive substantial independent traffic and marketing to generate sales. The platform offers limited ability to customize branding and layouts. Folksy charges high commission fees and requires a subscription per month.
Here are other Etsy alternatives:
Sellfy is an e-commerce platform for selling print-on-demand items, physical products, and digital products. After uploading them, you can customize the checkout pages and access sales channels.
The platform also offers a one-time monthly subscription fee with 0% transaction fees, which makes it a good option for anyone seeking to avoid Etsy’s complex and expensive fee structure. However, Sellfy offers you less visibility because it’s not a marketplace like Etsy, hence its place as an honorable mention.
The platform lets you create a standalone online store showcasing your products. It makes a good Etsy alternative since it adheres more to the handmade values than Etsy does. The platform enforces strict rules that small businesses or independent sellers must create items.
However, Goimagine is less popular than Etsy since it limits itself to the US market. That might render it hard for sellers to expand their reach and increase sales. Other drawbacks include limited product categories and fewer e-commerce features.
BigCartel is an online platform that enables creators, artists, and makers to build online stores with themes and custom domains. The platform doesn’t charge you anything to create an independent shop and gives you up to five free product listings. You must have a premium plan to list beyond this limit.
The biggest drawback with BigCartel is its monthly pricing, which increases based on how many items you want to list. BigCartel isn’t a market like Etsy, meaning it has a smaller customer base. Other factors like limited features and scalability constraints held it back from the top spot.
Etsy remains a solid choice for anyone selling special, rare, handmade items on many online marketplaces. However, the platform has high competition due to a huge user base and instances of dropshipping. Choosing a suitable Etsy alternative depends on how you intend to steer your own online store.
Amazon Handmade stands as the best Etsy alternative. It offers more visibility by tapping into Amazon’s brand recognition, and you gain instant access to a huge buyer audience.
If you want flexibility, Shopify is Etsy’s biggest competitor. The platform lets you build a customized online storefront with robust e-commerce functionality. You retain full control over your brand identity and shopping experience on Shopify.
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